


Of Webs and Weaving

by Milieu



Series: 33 Day Guro Challenge [15]
Category: Changeling: The Lost, World of Darkness (Games)
Genre: 33 Day Guro Challenge, Body Horror, Changelings, Other, POV First Person, Transformation, character backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-09
Updated: 2015-08-09
Packaged: 2018-04-13 18:01:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4531701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Milieu/pseuds/Milieu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spring Courtier Torey Scott recounts his durance in Arcadia.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Webs and Weaving

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt 15 - Insects
> 
> (Yes, yes, I know spiders aren't really insects but they're all creepy-crawlies of some sort so it counts.)

I was twelve when all of it happened. Twelve when Pearl Harbor was bombed. Twelve when my family - my parents, younger brothers, and me - were shipped off to the camp because the rest of the country decided we couldn't be trusted not to sell them out, even though we'd been in the States for generations.

I was twelve when She took me.

Even in that crowded, soulless place where some of our parents wept when they thought we couldn't see or hear, we found ways to play. I'd always been good at hide and seek, willing to wriggle into places the other kids wouldn't or couldn't. One day, I found a little nook and crawled in, pushing through all these spider webs to get far enough back that the seeker wouldn't immediately be able to find me. And he didn't.

 _She_ did.

I don't think that She ever gave any of us a name to call Her by. She was the Lady of the Estate, the one who put us all to work spinning Her silk or dyeing the cloth or stitching the clothes. There were others who followed Her around too, attended Her while She bathed and dressed Her in the clothes we made, and probably kept Her bed warm at night. I was one of the ones who She put to work spinning.

It's not easy if you don't know how to do it. I pricked my fingers so many times and bled onto that fresh silk, and was slapped or starved just as many times for it. I rubbed my fingertips raw for ages. Can't quite remember how long it took before I noticed all the little colorful hairs growing in when the skin finally healed.

Yeah, they're all over now, I know. The rest came in gradually, I guess, when my body finally figured out how much it needed to change. But it started there on my fingertips, because of how I had to work for Her.

First my fingers, then the extra eyes. Eyes had a lot of use in that house. Had to keep a lookout for Her, of course, 'cause She'd just show up and inspect things and if your work wasn't up to scratch you'd be paying for it. But it also helped to keep watch on the other workers too. There was no solidarity in that place, not when only one of us could be the best worker and the rest paid the price. So I got real good at looking everywhere at once.

And then I got to work on getting real good at spinning. I'd figured out by then that once I realized I needed to do or be something, it wouldn't be long before I'd start changing. That's how it is for all of us, you know, whether you do it consciously or not, or They make the changes for you. You become what you need to, to survive.

You know how people are always saying, _"oh, it would be so much easier to get things done if I had more arms"_? Yeah. That's how it happened, more or less. I'd had 'em for a while before I really noticed, you know? But the others noticed. They saw that I'd gotten faster at spinning.

She saw too, and for the first time ever, She praised me. It was... It wasn't as nice as I'd hoped, when I was trying to work so hard. When you were one of many, just getting your punishments and then going on, She didn't really notice you. When She praised you... She looked at you. Really looked, right at you, not just glancing over and then forgetting. You can't really understand until you've seen a face like that.

So many  _eyes._

But I kept working and getting better at it, because I hated Her looking at me but I also hated getting slapped or stung or having my food taken away. And there was a bit of pride in it too, you know? I hadn't really had a chance to figure out anything I was really good at before I was taken, but could I ever spin that silk. That whole saying about pride before a fall exists for a reason, though. I got a little  _too_ good at it, got praised while the rest were punished one time too many.

So they decided to get rid of me.

I don't blame them for it, not really. If my work had been flagging and someone else always getting out of the punishments, I'd probably have been in on it too. In the end, in that place, all we really were was a bunch of animals. If someone else is hogging up all the resources, you do what you can to take some for yourself. That's what animals do.

I don't know if they wanted to kill me or just chase me out, but I ran. Instead of an exit from the Estate, I found the stairs and went down, down, down into the lower levels to hide. I'd always been good at hiding.

And I found a little nook and I crawled in. And I pushed through all these spider webs, and what did you know, I'd found an exit after all.

It's kind of funny how, after all I went through in that place, after everything She did to me and I had to do to myself, the world I came back into was the thing that scared the piss out of me.

Seventy years. I went in a child and came out looking like a man (to humans, anyway) but for the people on the other side it was seventy years. The guys from the Courts who picked me up after I spent some time running around screaming at all the cars and moving billboards and whatnot said I spent a couple days catatonic after they told me. That was Her last laugh, I guess. Spend years as an animal, finally break out, and then you realize that there isn't even anything left of what you wanted to come back to. That thing She left in my place, it - he - grew up, had a family, got old, and died where I should have. Had to get a new identity together because of that; getting my cover blown because someone thinks I stole the identity of some old dead guy would be a pain. I bet he never even knew what he was.

I know what I am now, though. I look a damn fright to some, I know, but it's kind of funny now. I'm also a damn fine clothes-maker, and not a bad salesman, either. That blue suit the Spring King was wearing at the last function? I made that for him, special order. Not bad for a little old spider, hm? The Pearl Satrapy contacted me a little while ago, and I'm thinking about taking them up on that membership. I'm alive, and I'm making the most of it. And that's my story, for what it's worth.

So. You going to buy something?

**Author's Note:**

> CtL is probably my favorite tabletop rpg ever. I've had some ideas for Changeling fic bouncing around for a while and figured I'd start with a bit on my character, since I know him the best. I'll probably do some more for my NPCs or maybe even some other original characters in the future.
> 
> Also this ended up way longer than anything else in the series, whoops.


End file.
